


Orange Days

by mukaismom



Category: Mob Psycho 100
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, a singular swear word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mukaismom/pseuds/mukaismom
Summary: Mukai looks back on her earliest times with Tsuchiya (a.k.a.: Mukai-Tsuchiya friendship lore.)





	Orange Days

When Mukai first met Tsuchiya, she was young enough that she often confused memory with dream. But she knows the difference now, even though the orphanage feels like something from a different life.

She remembers the play set—there were two slides (the short one meant for little kids and the big, curly one that everyone got stuck on), and a ladder, and some monkey bars. She thinks they were yellow, or maybe red, but she can’t remember exactly. She hasn’t been there in so long, and even when she was there she avoided it because the kids didn’t like it when she talked about the little spirits around the neighborhood. There were too many kids at the playground, and it was too easy to be pushed into the woodchips. She usually avoided the adults, too (there was maybe one who ever entertained her “fantasies”), but she remembers seeing Tsuchiya by the curly slide, near the wavy-haired boy who called her a faker every day before breakfast, with her volunteer name sticker on her shoulder.  
Tsuchiya was tall, and strong, with hands that could crush bikes (she’d seen it) and soothe bruises (she’d felt it). When Mukai pointed out spirits, Tsuchiya didn’t call her a liar, confused, or stupid. 

“You have eyes like a hawk,” Tsuchiya said. “That’s good. Stay observant.” Mukai hadn’t seen a hawk aside from television, but there was a sooty winged spirit by her window that always seemed to notice her before she noticed it, so she showed Tsuchiya her best sketch—the one on the sparkly black craft paper labeled “Soot-chan.” Tsuchiya had frowned and asked what exactly Soot-chan did by her bedroom window. 

“She begs for food. She’s always hungry! I don’t think there are lots of things she can eat around here, so I give her some oranges from the kitchen.” Mukai covered her mouth suddenly. “But only the bruised ones! I don’t take the nice ones, okay? Please don’t tell the cooks.”

Once Mukai confirmed that what Soot-chan ate were not, in fact, young children or humans at any stage of their lives, Tsuchiya’s jaw relaxed and she asked Mukai for a spirit tour of the orphanage, just in case. Soon, these became habit.

Mukai brought an orange sometimes, and became convinced that oranges attracted spirits. She discovered years later that spirits flocked around sunset, but Tsuchiya never discouraged her from bringing oranges anyway. 

At some point, Tsuchiya spent more time volunteering than normally possible with a P.E. teacher’s schedule. She braided Mukai’s hair at lunch, those four little braids and a bun modeled after something Mukai saw in a middle schooler’s fashion magazine, and before their evening walk sometimes Tsuchiya was the one to steal an orange. One time, Mukai came crying to Tsuchiya and told her that someone scratched her arm when she got too close. Tsuchiya could tell it wasn’t the scratch that made her cry, but she taught Mukai how to throw a punch anyway.

Mukai used it a couple of days later when the wavy-haired boy pushed her into the playset with his friends. She was reprimanded by the caregiver, but came to Tsuchiya with a huge grin and told her how she’d punched the boy, and how an splintery old doll buried in the playground sandbox managed to stick its arm into another boy’s side, how he’d needed bandages, and how Mukai felt like she’d controlled it. How it was her protector. And Tsuchiya knew what this was, and told Mukai for the first time that she could only share this with her. She could tell her classmates about Soot-chan, and the one cat spirit that lived near the trash bins, but not about the doll. And Mukai had cried, and said how it had scared him, and how no one would ever be mean to her if they knew about it, and Tsuchiya told her with stern eyes and frowning mouth to only ever tell her. 

And then the day came (Mukai couldn’t remember exactly how long, maybe weeks or months; childhood memories warp time like no others) when a man arrived. To Mukai, he looked very tall, and very well dressed, as if he’d come from a business meeting. Maybe he was a CEO—Mukai had heard her teachers talking about one; they sounded important— or he could have come back from a wedding. That was nice, she thought. It was a friend’s wedding, and maybe they’d known each other for a really long time. Maybe his friend helped him choose out his glasses, or maybe not, because this man looked very serious and his glasses were very serious too, and Mukai thought since opposites attract his friend would’ve picked out some more cheerful glasses, maybe a little rounder, or pink-colored; that would be bright. 

Mukai remembers shouting something to the man—maybe “hey mister, did your friend get married today?” or “hey mister, where’d you get your glasses?” but Tsuchiya soon grabbed Mukai’s shoulder and told her to go up to her room. Mukai did so loudly and reluctantly, but once she sat in her room, watching Soot-chan beg for an orange she didn’t have, she felt a tense energy rise from downstairs. It was like when she could feel another student getting angry with her, or the feeling when she knew a teacher was disappointed in her, but it was all around her, rising up from where Tsuchiya and the man spoke below. It felt like when the doll rose up from the playground, she realized as she thought about it more, and when Tsuchiya had picked up that old motorcycle with one hand that was abandoned by the side of the road. 

It was familiar even though it was a little overwhelming, but it soon settled into a comfortable weight like wearing a heavy sweater in cold weather. Mukai decided to grab an orange for Soot-chan as she waited and stalked down to the kitchen. With only her bear-ear socks on, she was quiet as she turned into the kitchen. None of the cooks were there, she soon realized, and as she thought a little more, she didn’t remember seeing any teachers, caretakers, or even kids on her way up or down stairs. If they were all napping or on errands, it was no problem of Mukai’s, especially now that she had a straight shot to the orange bowl by the industrial fridge. 

It was quiet when Mukai tip-toed up to the bowl, and quiet when she plucked one from the top. It was a little mushy and it smelled over-ripe, but Soot-chan didn’t care. It was quiet as she padded up the stairs, and she couldn’t hear Tsuchiya or the man below her. The energy was still around her, but it was so widespread there was no way of knowing where they went. She pried the window open and held her orange-filled hand for Soot-chan, but for once she wasn’t there. Mukai called for her, but she didn’t come. Mukai leaned out a bit farther—maybe if she saw the orange, even a glimpse, she’d come flying—but she didn’t show up. She leaned even a little farther. Now, she could see around the corner of the building to the entrance, where the box-brush grew in an arch.

Mukai’s memory about the orphanage tends to be shaky at best. Insignificant memories here and there with bright, vivid clarity, and big events twisted in color and shape where she can’t remember the details. But here, looking down from the windowsill, around the corner of the building to the entrance where the box-brush grew in an arch, she remembers the tiny browning leaves and the branches just a little too long where the gardeners had missed a trim. It seemed especially unruly at the top of the arch where even a tall person would struggle to reach, and they probably weren’t paid enough to try any harder than they already had. 

Mukai remembers one of the gardeners, too: not her name but her looks. She was short, no taller than the wavy-haired boy, and even though at the time everyone above the age of ten looked at least 60, she was probably no older than 40. She had a wide hat with a chinstrap and fabric at the back to cover her neck, and she was walking off the orphanage’s property that moment Mukai looked around the corner with that orange in her left hand (left hand, she remembers, because Mukai thought Soot-chan might be a little more comfortable if she used the hand adults told her was scary, because Soot-chan was a little scary herself), and she wasn’t alone. 

Next to the gardener was another gardener, a few teachers, and some caretakers. One of them had clogs on. Mukai liked the sound they made. The nurse was there too, and behind them were all the children she’d known. That’s where they had been. They were all leaving—even the cooks, as she looked closer, and Mukai yelled for them to wait, and she heard her teacher bringing up the rear (the one who taught Mukai her first kanji) order the kids not to look back at Mukai, and not to speak, and to keep walking until they reached the safety of the community center.

Mukai remembers this not verbatim, but she sees her teacher’s face, and her eyes. Mukai thought she had the most beautiful eyes when she was little, though now her memory has warped them into something colder than they really were, maybe, but then they were gray and dark and pretty. Mukai told her that in class once, and the teacher smiled in a way that went to her eyes and told Mukai to work on her handwriting. 

In that moment, they weren’t the pretty gray eyes of the person who smiled at her big and genuine, without a hint of irony. They were hard and her brow was furrowed. She did not make eye contact with Mukai. She did not smile. She was the last to turn the corner and she followed her own orders: to not look back.

They had left her. Mukai was used to rejection, mockery, all kinds of put-downs and punches and nasty words. But they had been there. They had avoided her, but they cut out enough time in the day to make fun of her, and it reminded her that she existed. And now they had left, and she didn’t know when they were coming back, and she didn’t know where Tsuchiya and that man had gone, and there was no one, not even Soot-chan, as she curled up on the ratty carpeted floor and sobbed with the near-rotten orange forgotten by her feet. She was still crying when the door whipped open. She saw the man’s shiny work shoes from the corner of her eye.  
“Little girl, get up.” She curled tighter and cried harder. 

Mukai remember this verbatim: “Stop it! Her name is Mukai, you asshole,” mostly because she asked later what the word meant and Tsuchiya told her to never say it again (after giving an explanation, of course.)

“Hey, Mukai.” Tsuchiya touched her shoulder, gently. “Mukai sweetie, do you want to come live with me?”

Mukai shot up, tears still in her eyes. Her voice shook and even she had a hard time hearing herself, but she said “yes.” It was a little muffled in Tsuchiya’s sweatshirt as Mukai launched herself into a hug.

“Alright, sweetie. I have to tell you a couple of other things, okay?” Mukai nodded. She could see the man sitting on her bed over her shoulder, examining his nails. 

Tsuchiya pulled Mukai away, and now Mukai could see her face clearly. Mukai had never been very good at reading people, and she still wasn’t very good, but she’s sure that if her 20-year-old self had been there instead, she’d have seen the protective, desperate glint in Tsuchiya’s eyes. “This man is Sakurai-san, Mukai.” He nodded from his spot on the bed. “He’s like us.”

Mukai, still sniffling, found a grin on her face as he explains what he can do, and what some of his friends can do. Mukai especially liked the spirit man, and when Sakurai explains that she (and Tsuchiya, he adds as an afterthought) would live with all them, Mukai leaps up in joy. She’d be with Tsuchiya, and she’d be around people who wouldn’t tell her to quit lying, because they all know the truth. Her stomach turned in excitement.

Sakurai-san walked downstairs to wait in the kitchen. Tsuchiya stayed upstairs to help Mukai stuff clothes, a few brushes, her notebook with spirit drawings, and some hairbands into her backpack. It was a little small, but Tsuchiya showed Mukai how to roll her clothes up to make space. Mukai struggled with it at first, but once Tsuchiya turned it into a shirt-rolling race Mukai was just fine. Mukai won, but her rolls were messier, and they ended up on the carpet in giggles, winner forgotten. 

Before they met Sakurai downstairs, Mukai left the orange on the windowsill. “For Soot-chan,” who had never been gone this long before. Tsuchiya smiled and ruffled her hair. Some of it fell out of the braid, and Tsuchiya apologized and re-braided it. 

“You look ready to meet some more spirits,” Tsuchiya told Mukai as they walked downstairs. 

“Will there be more, Tsuchiya? I really want to meet more! I want to meet the man who keeps all the spirits! And if he doesn’t want to show me, I’ll find them myself and put them down in my notebook to show you! And I’ll name them all so people like us won’t get confused and we’ll all know what to call them!”

Tsuchiya laughed. “Yes, you’ll do a great job at that. You’re a spirit naturalist, after all.” 

Mukai swelled with pride. 

“Just,” Tsuchiya said, holding Mukai’s tiny hand gently, “please stay close to me once we get there.” Her tone had flattened, and even Mukai noticed it. Tsuchiya rushed to fix it. “I’ll need you to show me all the spirits, after all!” Tsuchiya swung Mukai’s hand as reached Sakurai’s car out front.

“Yeah, you’re kinda bad at finding them, so I’ll have to be there for you to see them!” Mukai grinned up at her. Tsuchiya gave her a thumbs-up. 

Mukai felt Tsuchiya’s arms tighten around her as she fell asleep in the car. The rest of the ride was silent.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love these guys ok?
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> [my tumblr](http://mukais-mom.tumblr.com/)


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